Confrontations

Sometimes you know, without a doubt, that the moment at hand is monumental.  A critical presentation, a crucial decision, or a crisis moment are all examples where we know time stops.  Everything in the moment and, one think, in the future pivots on this moment.  As I look at the world around me; from my work at hand to being in the presence of musicians playing before a key audience to the stories of those confronted by the tyranny of evil (robbery, muggings), I often think I understand when and where life changing confrontations occur. 
 
I’m not alone.  Individuals and communities across history have thought the same.  When one reads how “the king of Assyria sent his general, the “Rabshekah,” accompanied by a huge army, from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah.  The general stopped at the aqueduct where it empties into the upper pool on the road to the public laundry.  Three men went out to meet him: Eliakim son of Hilkiah, in charge of the palace; Shebna the secretary; and Joah son of Asaph, the official historian.”  (Isaiah 36.2, 3)  It is easy to see how both communities of that day saw the moment as critical, crucial, and potentially a crisis. 
 
I wonder if the moment we consider most crucial is really the hand already set being played out.  A band’s moment in the lights pivots on what has gone on before.  Business decisions are rarely decided on the spur of the moment; they are framed and in context.  Life follows a path lit by the decisions made in the quietness and darkness when nobody was or is looking.  It is in the dark nights of our souls where life changes.  It is the values we hold closest to our hearts, the ones which change us from the inside out, where life changes.  It is the faith we walk in, not the one we tell others we have, that shapes our lives.
 
You and I will have confrontations and battles in our lives.  The best living comes when we fight the ones which matter.